YAWH: Yet Another Wall-E Hack

Let's Make Robots Robots
1

Hi Everyone.

Update: I've got Wall-e mobile and sensing objects. Lately I wired up a dual battery supply. Separate batteries for his servos and cpu. Once his servo batteries get low, he switches to use his cpu batteries for both servo and cpu. The one test I did on the switch over was successful, not even a movement interruption. Wiring up the sound board now, so Wall-e can "talk". Next will be wiring up and testing the microphones. Oh, I also have the LDR's attached, when it get's dark now, Wall-e goes to sleep. Wakes up with light.

I was inspired by DJ Sures (http://atomic.speculation.org/index.html?page=52) to create an autonomous robot using the Interactive Wall-E toy. I'll be adding a few extra sensors to it, light sensors in the eyes, mic's on each side. Also made the eye LED's tri-color so they can change color when he gets mad. This robot won't be mapping the floor, just random roaming, avoiding obsticales, generally staying in a lighted room (he's afraid of the dark), and heading towards any noise he hears (curious)..

Many thanks again to DJ Sures.

arm socket and servo connector

Connecting servos for arms and head

 

 

As can be seen in this picture, the plastic "stub" in the arm socket was ground down and the servo connector was clipped to fit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

top case hacking

 

 

The arm supports were then cut away to fit the servos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

arm servos in place

 

 

And the servos just slide in. Tie wraps used to hold them in place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

arm and head servos in place

 

 

 

Just enough room left for the head servo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

head servo connector

I cut a slot on the underside of the head support to hold the servo connector. This I glued in place

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

top view without head support

Here is a top view of the Wall-e with the head servo inplace waiting for the revolving head support. You can see were I had to cut the casing because of the arm servos. Just enough room!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

top view showing head support inplace

And here is the view with the head support attached. It is attached to the servo with a screw through the centre hole. The revolving support just barely touches the arm servos, should be fine though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Random roaming with light and noise sensors and sound effects

  • Actuators / output devices: speaker, servo tracks, servo arms, servo head, tri-color LED eyes
  • CPU: Picaxe 28x1
  • Power source: 4 AA batteries for servos, 4AA batteries for cpu
  • Sensors / input devices: Sharp GP2D120 IR sensor, 2 LDR, stereo mic's, DS1821 Temperature sensor
  • Target environment: indoors
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://community.robotshop.com/robots/show/yawh-yet-another-wall-e-hack
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Converting toys into robots
Converting toys into robots is soooo awesome!! I can’t wait to see this up an running! You should sell it back to Disney when your done. =p

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This looks very promising.
This looks very promising. I can’t wait to see you updates on this.

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Wow, Great job. How long did

Wow, Great job. How long did it take you to come up with how to mount servos to his arms. I would have struggled with that.

The world’s best motto: When all else fails, use a bigger hammer.

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ok ok now let me guess this

ok ok now let me guess this straight…

your actually just changin a cpu on just some toy.

i think on those photo, u just only show on how to connect the arms.

what about the head or the wheels.

try showing us a video that the toy works ok…

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You should notice on the top

You should notice on the top right of the page near where the robots additional information is that this is "in progress" which means its not finished. </p><p>These robot pages are meant for keeping a record of building your robot as you are building it. I expect the builder has been kept busy by other things and hasnt updated for a while.

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more like adding a cpu,
more like adding a cpu, servos, leds etc. The toy is just the shell he is adding all of the guts.

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back working on this

After quite some time, I’m back working on this. I’ve tested all my sensors and written a bunch of code, but with Wall-e still on the testbench. I should have him mobile soon though. Working on getting all the wires in.

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All the servo ideas came

All the servo ideas came from DJSures, I don’t have the experiance with them to have figured it out.

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After all this time it is

After all this time it is great to see you have returned, i would be very interested in seeing your final outcome, i did finish mine but really no time to program him with anything complex, if you do come up with some great programming code, i would be interested in purchasing it.

 

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The Plan

 

 Wall-e had a dress rehersal yesterday and it went well. I was able to get all the wires, circuit board, batteries and connectors inside him. I then took him apart and started wiring the PICAXE to the servo connectors. I’ll test that out today and hopefully have him mobile tonight. The plan is:

  1) get him mobile first, following a simple “exercise” program - move arms, head and tracks. Totally running on batteries for the first time. Reset line connected to back button, “sleep” function activated by front “play” button.

   2) Collision avoidance - hook up the Sharp distance detector and program collision avoidance. Simple backup and proceed to turn left if clear. Random movements for “explore” mode.

   3) Sound detection - here is where it gets more difficult- attach “ear” microphones and get Wall-e to head towards the noise.

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it’s alive - well, sort of…

I got Wall-e mobile for the first time this weekend, simple “exercise” program moving his arms, head and tracks. Battery life with 4 NiMH AA’s looks good. Not as much speed control as I would have liked, probably just end up using a fast and a slow speed.

Next is to add the SHARP distance finder and have him avoid objects. To do this I thought I might as well start wiring the mic’s in his head and come up with a VDD/Ground strategy which would allow me to switch off these mic’s for low power operation but still keep the object sensor and LDR’s working (when he is hungry (ie low power) he will be looking for food ie, flashing beacons). This will take me a couple of days.